AL Tout Wars Recap

As the Gators look to put the Ducks away and I have time before UNC and the Hoyas I jumped on to recap yesterday’s AL Tout Draft that took place at 9am ET in NYC.

Here was my approach. Get two monster bats, load up on speed in MI and go with one above average OF and roll the dice on the rest of the OF with power and speed mix. For pitching I wanted to have a big K closer and quality starters at reasonable prices with high K relievers who may grab a save or two.

Here was my "target" team knowing I couldn’t get them all but they added up to $260 and made me feel good about heading into the season knowing I may have to make a few deals while being aggressive with my $100 FAAB.

c Ramon Hernandez 12

c Larue 1

1b Morneau 30

2b Kinsler 16

SS Lugo 19

3b A-Rod 38

co Marte 9

MI Cairo 1

of Damon 26

of Jose Guillen 4

of Kenny Lofton 8

of Jay Gibbons 9

of brad Wilkerson 8

UT J. Gomes 14

p Mussina 17

p Westbrook 6

p Silva 2

p Saunders 1

p McCarthy 7

p Fernando Cabrera 1

p Scot shields 9

p bobby jenks 24

Here is who I got with comments and my reserve list after wards (random generated draft order of 6 rounds, I got pick 11).

c zaun 8 (spent 5 extra bucks on a-rod so decided to shave it off by 4 on catcher)

c suzuki 1 (it got so bad at end of draft I took the chance he gets called up on a Kendall injury instead of taking Mike Redmond, I’ll bid $0 or $1 on a active catcher this week and demote Kurt)

1b Morneau 29 (very happy with this)

2b Lugo 19 (very happy with this, when I lost out on Kinsler who went for 20, Barfield who went for 21, Kendrick who went for 21 and Iguchi who went for 18. They all went higher then expected so what I did was secure Lugo at what I felt was market value and put him at SS, then when I felt a good opportunity I got **** I liked and moved Lugo to 2B, that SS was….

SS Y. Betancourt 14 (he went a little higher then I wanted but thought it was worth it , banking on .300 and double digit steals)

3b A-Rod 43 (got into a tense bidding war till the end with Team Wolf/Colston. Nothing was stopping me from getting him, have no problem spending the extra 3-5 bucks. Him and Morneau are a nice tandem for me)

co Greg Norton 9 (ignore the money this was a ******* disaster, he was my last slot and after missing out on Marte and Garko I stayed back and then all of a sudden everyone was out of money or only could spend a dollar per player. The good news is he is 1b and of eligible and did well with 300 ab’s in 2006. The really bad part is that the money I had left should have gotten me a better starter of outfielder earlier in the draft, so I dropped the ball on this one and will have to work hard to correct.)

MI Jerry Hairston 2 (HGH. hope guy hits)

OF Damon 27 (thank God, since you’ll see rest of my outfield now. Try not to puke.)

OF Dellucci 15 (he isn’t the only OF to go way higher then expected Baldelli 21, gibbons 19, kubel 20, nelson cruz 10, Jose guillen 15, Casey Blake 17. It was crazy! If I would have known this I would have gotten a Torii Hunter at 21 or Magglio at 17 and lived with another dollar player somewhere.)

OF Catalanato 4 (another platoon player)

OF Choo 1 (could be a steal if Nixon gets hurt and Blake outplays Garko at 1B)

OF Stewart 1 (an old favorite and fellow plantar fascists sufferer, low risk and potential high reward for a 5Th OF in non mixed)

UT Thome 18 (couldn’t believe I got him this cheap, had no intention of getting him but heard crickets as he got to 15 so I jumped in and swiped him at 18. If he has another Thome year, I’ll have a great threesome of Thome, A-Rod and Morneau)

P Ervin Santana 13 (I love this kid and couldn’t resist it when his name got tossed out there. At the time I had no clue of the OF insanity coming my way so hindsight is 20-20 and I don’t care because he could explode this year)

P Brandon McCarthy 2 (If he grows into potential this will be a steal. If he doesn’t he only cost 2 bucks which is 5 less then I had him at)

P Fausto Carmona 1 (hedge for Cliff Lee and he has talent except against the Red Sox in big spots)

P Scott Proctor 1 (threw him out at a buck and the crickets delivered, oh well)

P Juan Rincon 3 (solid MR and protection for my closer)

P Justin Speier 2 (good K’s)

P Joe Nathan 26 (ended up being highest bid closer, but the difference was minimal and he is arguably the best in AL fantasy wise. K-Rod went for 24, Ryan 25, Mo 25, Street 23. Putz went for 16 and Papelbon 16 as well, but a lot of injury comments for both.)

For the 6 round reserve draft I had pick 11 and knew I had to get OF and SP help.

Adam Jones (could get the call if Guillen goes down, might have been a reach but I had pick 11 so best were gone like Adam Lind etc..)

George Sherrill (potential closer , but good MR anyway, could get him in there for opening week most likely to replace Cliff Lee)

Ryan Sweeney (if Brian Anderson doesn’t wake up then I have the replacement)

Nick Adenhart (with all the injuries for angels and his big prospect status who knows)

During the week the Tout page will be updated and this league will be hosted on espn.com. Would like to thank Jason Grey and everyone else for making me feel very welcome, it was great to see them all and I had a blast.

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3 Comments

Thanks for sharing, guys. Never done an AL-only or NL-only, so this is interesting for me to see.

I agree with Mike’s point about Thome. Seems like a huge steal at 18, especially relative to how other players were going. Just looking at the Tout page, I see Jason Kubel at 20, Casey Blake at 17, Aubrey Huff at 21…

Again, having never played in a league-specific format, the lack of depth on any of these teams seems startling to me. It seems fun, though, thinking of getting to play long odds on injured veterens and young kids — mostly because you have to!

Just for fun, here are the projected stats for Schwartz and Siano. The stats are combined projections from Corey’s PDF file:

Siano

916 Runs

835 RBI

100 SB

205 HR

.278 AVG

4.02 ERA

1.29 WHIP

884 K

71 W

42 SV

Schwartz

934 Runs

859 RBI

158 SB

228 HR

.275 AVG

4.10 ERA

1.34 WHIP

970 K

65 W

38 SV

Siano is up in 4 of 5 pitching categories; Schwartz projects higher in 4 of 5 offensive categories. Of course, Siano is working with several platoon players at this point, which suppress his hitters’ counting stats. Factoring that in, along with the more limited selection of teams in the AL (14 to 16 in the NL), you could make the case that Mike did quite well for himself. Could this be the year he takes Tout?

Also, Cushing’s team projects as follows:

1058 R

1036 RBI

136 SB

289 HR

.280 AVG

3.80 ERA

1.29 WHIP

946 K

59 W

143 SV

More context to this is needed, of course, but it sounds like Corey is already working on the rest of the projections.

Best of luck all three of you. Is it possible to achieve the MLB.com trifecta in Tout? :)

I think this team is better than it’s made out to be while Norton at $9 screams at you there is a lot of value there particularly in the pitching staff, you also have Longoria there who could come in and save your corner spot if he continues like he did last year.

Having listened to the show yesterday the big values seem to have been gotten in the older sluggers Manny et all who could have been potential bargains without tying your money up in A Rod but I assume A Rod went first but it’s very easy now to see the patterns which I would assume are a lot harder to see in the draft!

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